Reel mowers equipped with reel cutting units are well known for mowing grass on golf courses and the like. For example, a riding fairway mower has a traction frame on which multiple reel cutting units are mounted in a gang configuration for mowing the fairways of golf courses. Each cutting unit typically comprises a rotatable reel that sweeps the grass against a fixed bedknife and front and rear rollers for allowing the cutting unit to roll over the ground. The assignee of this invention, namely The Toro Company, manufactures and sells a line of such reel mowers under the Reelmaster® brand name.
A separate grass basket can be coupled to each cutting unit. Each grass basket is substantially enclosed except for an open mouth. The cutting unit to which such grass basket is mounted throws grass clippings through the open mouth of the grass basket into the interior of the grass basket for collection of the grass clippings within the grass basket during operation of the mower. When the grass baskets on the cutting units become filled, the operator must stop the mower, lift the baskets off the cutting units, empty the baskets, and then replace the baskets on the cutting units before mowing can resume. Preferably, this basket emptying operation has to be conducted at a location where the clippings can be appropriately dumped which may require the operator to first drive the mower to such location. Alternatively, a utility vehicle has to be brought up to or follow the mower so that the operator can dump the clippings into the box of the utility vehicle to thereafter use the utility vehicle to haul the clippings off.
The grass basket and the cutting unit to which it is coupled, while being operatively coupled to each other during operation of the mower, are able to pivot relative to one another during operation of the mower about a horizontal pivot axis defined by a pair of mounting pins on the grass basket that are received in a pair of slots on the cutting unit. This permits necessary changes in orientation between the grass basket and the cutting unit during operation of the mower without uncoupling the two from one another. For example, when the cutting unit is lifted off the ground into a transport position using a lift and lower system on the mower, the grass basket lifts with it. However, the cutting unit becomes rearwardly inclined relative to the grass basket in a nose up/tail down orientation relative to the grass basket as it reaches the transport position with the front roller of the cutting unit lifting upwardly towards the bottom wall of the grass basket. Such a change in orientation can also occur during a cutting operation of the mower when the mower is being used on contoured or rolling surfaces, such as when the cutting unit comes to the crest of a hill or as the cutting unit transitions through a dip or swale in the surface.
It has been common in the reel mower art in recent times to use grass baskets that are molded out of a substantially rigid plastic material and to shape the grass basket to permit the usual changes in orientation between the grass basket and the cutting unit that occur during operation of the mower, namely either when the mower is in its cutting or transport modes. More particularly, the bottom wall of known prior art grass baskets has been formed with a curved, upwardly raised portion leading extending across the width of the bottom wall near the front end of the bottom wall. This curved raised portion raises the front end of the bottom wall of the grass basket with respect to the remaining portion of the bottom wall. However, the raised portion of the bottom wall provides a space into which the front roller can swing without hitting the grass basket during the orientation changes that occur between the grass basket and the cutting unit during the operation of the mower. This space must be large enough to take into account that the front roller in certain configurations must be spaced significantly forwardly of the reel to be able to accommodate an optional turf groomer that can be installed between the front roller and the reel. This is useful in avoiding damage over time to the grass basket or the front roller and to mitigate the risk that contact between the front roller and the grass basket could inadvertently uncouple the grass basket from the cutting unit.
Unfortunately, the raised portion of the bottom wall, which must necessarily be designed to provide space for the front roller in the worst case scenario of the most forward position of the front roller on the cutting unit, constricts the vertical size of the open mouth of the grass basket. In addition, it has been necessary to reinforce the bottom wall where the raised portion of the bottom wall transitions into the front end of the bottom wall. This reinforcement structure creates an upwardly extending lip along the bottom wall of the grass basket very near to but behind the front lip of the bottom wall. The Applicants have discovered that grass clippings tend to accumulate on this lip and quickly build up thereon, particularly when cutting damp or wet grass. This soon impedes or blocks the flow of the clippings further back into the interior of the grass basket. As a result, the Applicants discovered that the grass basket will stop freely accepting the flow of clippings with the clippings even being forced partially outside the grass basket into unsightly piles on the surface being mowed due to the blockages at the mouth and even though the grass basket is only partially filled with empty space remaining near the rear end of the grass basket.
As a result of the partial filling of the grass baskets that sometimes occur as described above, the operator of the reel mower must stop more frequently than would be desired to empty the partially filled grass baskets, thus removing the blockages in the open mouths of the grass baskets that built up and impeded their more complete filling. This is not productive and requires more time to finish the mowing operation than is strictly necessary. Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art to provide a solution to this problem in allowing the grass basket to fill substantially completely but while still permitting the necessary changes in orientation that occur between the grass basket and the cutting unit during operation of the mower.